


There is a Light

by atrata



Category: Devil Wears Prada
Genre: Apocafic, F/F, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-11
Updated: 2008-02-11
Packaged: 2017-10-08 05:42:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/73288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atrata/pseuds/atrata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>The fact is that Andy and Miranda are in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, and Miranda is standing there in a gray Bill Blass suit with a shotgun and she wants to talk to Patrick.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	There is a Light

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I don't know, either. Blame [](http://somniesperus.livejournal.com/profile)[**somniesperus**](http://somniesperus.livejournal.com/) for this, or at least her [list of prompts](http://community.livejournal.com/dvlwears_prada/103051.html), which doesn't actually say anything at all about zombie apocalypse fic. Oops? Thanks to [](http://murklins.livejournal.com/profile)[**murklins**](http://murklins.livejournal.com/) for doing beta duty.

"Andrea." Miranda's voice is its usual calm sharp self, and thank god, because Andy's falling apart. But she can say, _yes, Miranda_, and mean it and pretend everything is totally, completely normal.

So she does: "Yes, Miranda?"

"There is a shotgun in my wall-safe."

Andy blinks. _This is insane_, she thinks. _This is insane, or it's a dream, or it's an insane dream, and any second now I am going to wake up and go to my normal journalism job at my normal newspaper and none--_

"Andrea!" Miranda snaps, jolting Andy out of her reverie. "Did you lose your hearing in the six months since I saw you last?"

"No, Miranda. Of course not."

"Then what are you waiting for?"

"Um." _Normal. I am waiting for normal._ "The combination?"

Miranda's eyes narrow, as if the last thing she'd expected was for Andy to come up with an intelligent question. As if somehow Andy asking about the combination was far more surprising than the ZOMBIE HORDES outside the Elias-Clarke building. Oh, god. _Wake up ANY TIME_, she thinks furiously.

"I see I'll just have to do it myself," Miranda says under her breath. "As usual." She stands up and glides into her office, leaving Andy standing, speechless, in front of her old desk.

Andy's jaw drops when Miranda calls out, "Get me Patrick!" like it's a perfectly normal day. Miranda cannot possibly be serious. Andy takes a few seconds to gather herself, and then walks to the door of Miranda's office. Miranda has opened her wall-safe, and is standing in the middle of the room inspecting a pump-action shotgun the way Andy watched her inspect the Dior fall line. Andy is actually wearing something from the line in question, a navy pantsuit, and she assumes that's why Miranda hasn't said anything nasty about letting herself go.

"Miranda? Don't you think we might want to..." But she doesn't finish her sentence, because she has no idea what they might want to do. There are _zombies_, and they are converging on the building, and Andy doesn't know why she's even _there_ except she saw something on CNN and wanted to make sure Miranda was okay. Stupid, stupid Andy. Of _course_ Miranda is okay.

"Do you have Patrick?" Miranda doesn't even look up.

"You can't be serious. I know you've seen the news. We need to get out of here!"

Not that Andy has any idea where they'll go. It's not just New York; it's everywhere. They -- and Andy has no idea who _they_ are, probably the government or scientists or journalists -- have come up with some scientific name for it, but the fact is that Andy and Miranda are in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, and Miranda is standing there in a gray Bill Blass suit with a shotgun and she wants to talk to Patrick. Andy rubs at her head, where a zombie bit off most of her hair. Maybe Miranda has lost her mind. She hasn't said anything about Andy's 'hairstyle,' or her lack of shoes.

"Don't be ridiculous. We can't go anywhere. The next issue goes to press in three days."

"...Miranda? Don't you think, I mean, with the impending apocalypse and all, that maybe people aren't going to be very concerned about fashion?"

Miranda looks up and raises one perfect eyebrow. "If you can't care about looking good when you die, Andrea, you might as well never have cared at all."

Then she pumps the shotgun, one-handed, and the loud click-_clack_ shatters Andy's hopes of ever waking up in her normal life again.

"Shit," she says, and she doesn't even want to _know_ where Miranda learned to do that without so much as disturbing the black scarf around her neck; it remains perfectly knotted. "Miranda, you _have_ seen the news, right? Of course you have, you have a _shotgun_, but we can't just. I can't. I'm not even your assistant anymore! Fuck, we're going to die." She rubs at her missing hair.

"Oh, please." Miranda waves a hand. "Aren't there movies about this sort of thing? How difficult can it be? They're zombies. You move slowly, and if they spot you, you decapitate them. We'll be fine."

"Ohmygod," Andy says, and it's very hard not to drop to the floor, go fetal, and whimper. She doesn't even know what's more disturbing: the idea of Miranda watching zombie movies, or the idea of Miranda decapitating actual zombies. She wraps her arms around herself and tries to breathe, tries to tell herself that if Miranda is so confident in her decapitation ability, maybe there's nothing to worry about. It doesn't work very well.

"Andrea! Pull yourself together." Miranda is suddenly right there, right in front of her, close enough to smell and feel and _wake up wake up wake up_. She doesn't wake up, and it's beginning to dawn on her that this isn't a dream. She is sick with fear, sweating in her Dior, and Miranda grabs her by the shoulder and shakes. Her perfectly manicured nails dig into Andy's skin through the wool of her jacket.

Andy takes a second to be self-conscious about her missing hair, and then her vision swims back into focus. Miranda is still there, beautiful and perfect and composed and Andy hates her, a little bit, maybe, or it's the fear talking or possibly she's just plain stupid, because she leans in and kisses Miranda. _Kisses her_, and no, this is definitely not a dream, because there's a pause, one of those pauses that stretches long and impossibly wide while her stomach drops to her feet, but then Miranda is kissing her back. The shotgun is... somewhere, whatever, Andy doesn't fucking know and it doesn't matter, because Miranda Priestly is _kissing her back_. Andy fists her hands in the lapels of Miranda's jacket, and there will probably be wrinkles because the jacket is more silk than blend, but she leans in close and doesn't care.

Miranda kisses pretty much exactly the way Andy imagined she would, if she'd imagined it at all, which obviously she hasn't. The knot of fear in her stomach dissolves into something else, something hot and electric, and tendrils of desire curl around the base of her spine. Miranda's tongue sweeps into Andy's mouth, hungry and possessive and maybe a little bit mean, and it's even meaner when she pulls away.

Andy does not whimper.

Miranda smirks.

They're still standing very close together, close enough for Andy to feel it on her lips when Miranda breathes, and Miranda leans a little closer and whispers, "Andrea?" Andy nods and swallows, her eyes fluttering shut. "Get me Patrick."

Then Miranda turns and goes back to doing whatever Miranda does, leaving Andy standing there cold, alone, jagged around the edges. _Patrick_, she thinks. _Get Patrick_. She staggers out to her old desk and dials. _I can do this_, she says to herself over and over again. _I can do this._ But the phone rings forever and there's no answer, and the zombie-apocalypse thing crashes back down around her. It had been momentarily displaced by the kissing-Miranda thing, but now it's back: They're going to die.

She goes back to Miranda's office and drops in the chair in front of her desk. She'd never dared before, and can barely believe she's daring now, but there are some seriously extenuating circumstances, like the fact that she's too freaked out to stand.

"I'm sorry, Miranda," she says, and she really truly _is_, "but there was no answer."

Miranda looks up from her computer. "Did you try his cell?"

Andy is approaching hysterics, but Miranda's business-as-usual tone calms her down a little bit. "Oh. I. No."

"Honestly, Andrea, if you can't even get--"

"Where's Emily?" Andrea interrupts, something else she never would have dared to do before. Before. Before. "Where's... anyone? Why are we the only people here?"

Miranda's eyes narrow briefly, and then she looks away. "They're in the Closet."

Andy opens and closes her mouth three times. Then she repeats, "They're in the Closet."

"My idiot second assistant got infected this morning."

"So you..." She trails off, unable to follow Miranda's train of thought. Miranda shifts in her chair and looks uncomfortable.

"I didn't realize," she finally snaps. "She seemed a little slower than usual, of course. But we have a run-through tomorrow, and I can't be expected to keep track of how each member of my staff is feeling."

It's a good thing Andy's already sitting down, because she's feeling kind of faint. She twists her hands together in her lap. "Your assistant was bitten by a zombie and you didn't notice?"

Miranda just glares at her, and she _still_ hasn't said anything about Andy's missing hair. It's getting kind of weird.

"Okay," Andy says slowly, shaking her head. "Okay, so that doesn't explain why everyone is in the Closet."

"By the time I realized she was infected, she had infected several others. Obviously something needed to be done."

"Obviously," Andy says, but the only obvious thing about this situation is that Miranda is a lunatic. "And you locked them all in there with the clothes?"

"Don't be absurd," Miranda snaps, and Andy's chest loosens with relief. Except then Miranda says, "I took the clothes out first."

Oh, god. "Of course you did," Andy says, and she's choking on horror as something dawns on her. It's hard to breathe. "Miranda... you did only lock in the infected people, right? You didn't lock up anyone who hadn't been bitten?"

There's another one of those impossibly long pauses, and Andy tries to breathe around the hole in herself as she waits for Miranda to say, _No, Andrea, I did not just condemn a bunch of innocent clackers to their deaths._

But what Miranda says is, "I."

It is not the reassurance Andy was looking for. "Oh, god." She thinks she might throw up.

"They'd all been infected."

"Oh." That's... better, Andy guesses, because it means Miranda is only guilty of overwhelming narcissism, and that's always been true. She's not guilty of murder, though, so Andy supposes things could be worse. Also, it makes her feel a little better about their impending doom, to think that Miranda just ordered all the zombies into the Closet, and they went. Maybe there is some hope of getting out of this alive.

"Okay. I'll go try Patrick's cell," she says, because she's all Miranda has left, and Miranda wants Patrick.

There's no answer. She tries everyone who's programmed into speed dial, everyone whose number is in the computer or in Miranda's planner or rolodex or PDA. No one answers, anywhere.

When the power goes out, she sits on the couch in Miranda's office and asks how many shells Miranda has for the shotgun.

"Twelve," Miranda says, her voice soft. The locks in the office are electronic. The Closet doors would have unlocked when the power failed.

"How many are in the Closet?"

"More than twelve." They can hear them, now, clacking and groaning and shuffling, and it sounds like a _lot_ more than twelve.

"We're going to die," she says, and she's calm, so calm, and the only thing left to do is kiss Miranda some more before the zombies show up and kill them. She gets up off the couch and moves closer.

"What are you doing?" Miranda's voice is sharp and cold, with no hint of fear or uncertainty. It's nice, to hear her like that, at a time like this.

"I thought I might kiss you again, before the zombies get us."

"Don't be ridiculous," Miranda snaps, irritated. "You can kiss me once we have dispatched the zombies."

Andy blinks. They are not going to dispatch any zombies, let alone _all_ of the zombies, but she nods her head anyway, as if Miranda's strength of will alone is going to get them through this. She pushes Miranda's desk in front of the door, as much of a barricade as they have time for, and then she ducks behind the couch.

Miranda does not duck. She stands her ground, moonlight glinting off the shotgun and her silk-blend pants, and she waits. Andy takes a deep breath, stands, and goes to wait next to her.

**FIN.**


End file.
